The jockeys have more hoop game than the trainers

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Now, this was a basketball game for the ages. Or maybe just a minute or two.

The Saratoga jockeys took on assorted members of the Spa training colony as well as executives from the New York Racing Association Wednesday night and … well, let’s just say no one from the Basketball Hall of Fame is going to come looking for any memorabilia.

For the record, the jockeys won the game 45-41. Thursday morning, trainer Todd Pletcher assessed his performance.

“I scored a whopping three points,” said Pletcher, who said he wasn’t too sore. “But, I led the team in fouls. I think they stopped counting at, like 10. I almost took (jockey) Rajiv’s (Maragh) head off.”

The game raised money for the Permanently Disabled Jockeys’ Fund and the Racetrack Chaplaincy. Besides Pletcher, trainers who played included Rich Schosberg, Billy Badgett and former trainer Elliott Walden, who is not the Vice President at WinStar Farm.

The jockey roster included Eibar Coa Kent Desormeaux, Victor Santiago, John Velazquez and Maragh. Apparently, the riders brought in some ringers to equalize the playing field.

“It was hard to outrebound them when they had three guys over 6-6,” Pletcher said. “One guy was supposedly the leading apprentice at Suffolk. At 6-10. The jockeys .. they’re quick, man. A couple of those guys are like waterbugs. They’re everywhere.”

The ringers were either local college or high school players.

“Some of the jockeys were like 6-5 and 6-6 and were in the process of playing NCAA basketball,” Schosberg said. “I thought the trainers did very well considering that they obviously changed the scale of weights and the scale of heights.”